Shari Laster and James R. Jacobs will join us to talk about the future of public access to government information and documents.  Specifically, they will talk about Chapter 19 of Title 44 of the US Code, that affirmatively guarantees free public access to (some) government information. 

Shari Laster is the Government Information Librarian and Data Services Librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She currently serves as chair of the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association, and is a past chair of the Depository Library Council, the advisory body for the Federal Depository Library Program. 

James R. Jacobs is the US Government Information Librarian at Stanford University Libraries where he supports the research needs of the university, and works on both traditional collection development as well as digital projects like LOCKSS-USDOCS and Web harvesting. He received his MSLIS in 2002 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a member of ALA’s Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) and served a 3-year term (2009 – 2012) on Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, including serving as DLC Chair from 2011 – 2012. He is a co-founder of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info) and Radical Reference (radicalreference.info) and is on the board of Question Copyright, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes a better public understanding of the history and effects of copyright, and encourages the development of alternatives to information monopolies.